


Ici tout finit bien

by Northland



Category: Nine Coaches Waiting - Mary Stewart
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Hot Weather, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21825463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northland/pseuds/Northland
Summary: Another drive up into the heights; another new home for me at the end of it.
Relationships: Linda Martin/Raoul de Valmy
Comments: 22
Kudos: 39
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Ici tout finit bien

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lovely_ericas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovely_ericas/gifts).



> It was wonderful having a reason to revisit this old favourite. I hope you enjoy the story!

Another drive up into the heights; another new home for me at the end of it. 

This was much different than last time, of course. The vehicle was a shabby Citroën that rattled and strained on some of the steeper grades, rather than a sleek, quietly powerful sedan. Nor was I nervous, alone in the world, accompanied only by a silent and withdrawn employer. And this time I rode in the passenger seat, watching my husband’s lean, tanned hands handle the wheel expertly while Philippe hung over my shoulder and exclaimed at every peak revealed by a new twist in the road.

Raoul and I had been married quietly in Paris in June, though my dress (a gift from M. Florimond) deserved a far grander occasion that I hoped it might yet grace; perhaps a future Easter ball at Valmy. And we had spent the first month of our marriage in the city—accompanied by Philippe, of course. 

Perhaps honeymooning with a nine-year-old was not the most conventional approach, but it suited us well enough. Hippolyte was still digging among the dust of ancient Greece, and Raoul and I couldn’t desert Philippe so soon. So in the mornings, while Raoul met with his lawyers and bankers in an attempt to untangle their inheritances and find out which funds were properly Bellevigne’s, Philippe did some desultory schoolwork while I drank coffee and read on the hotel balcony. In the afternoons, all three of us roamed the city. We visited the fête in the Tuileries and the ménagerie in the Jardin des plantes, and devoured ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch. Raoul and I had never before been able to do the things that children in Paris take for granted; these childish amusements were every bit as enjoyable for us as they were for Philippe. In the evening, Berthe stayed with him while Raoul and I explored the Paris of lovers.

But even the sweetest honeymoon must end, and once the lawyers had set their teeth into the work, Raoul wanted to return to his home in Provence and prepare for the September vendange. He had gone ahead to ensure all was in order, and when Philippe and I arrived at the station in Avignon, had picked us up in the old Citroën.

None of us wanted to live at Valmy yet, though Raoul and I agreed that we must return at some point before too long. For one thing, it was Philippe’s birthright, and it would have to become some kind of home for him eventually. But how best to transform it into that from a somewhat sinister, glittering manor, neither of us had any idea, not having much experience with making a home. So it seemed sensible to begin on a smaller scale at Raoul’s Provençal place. 

“How much farther?” Philippe asked, a slight whine creeping into his voice. 

“Is it high in the mountains?” I followed up, in a transparent attempt to distract Philippe. 

“Patience, monsieur. Kicking my seat won’t make us travel any faster.” Raoul threw the two of us a small, fond smile. “No, not very high. It faces south, of course, and the house sits above the vineyards.” He downshifted again as the car lunged up a steeper angle. “I'll teach you to drive, Linda. It can be rather isolated here if you don’t. The closest village is even smaller than Soubirous, and Avignon is at least half an hour away. There aren’t a lot of buses, either.”

These hills were very different from the landscape around Valmy. It was high summer now, and the Midi lay baking under the unblinking gaze of the pitiless sun. There were fewer trees as well; mainly acacia, holm oak, and other scrub trees with dusty leaves that hugged the slopes. The sharp resinous scent of rosemary and sage rose in waves from the hot earth.

Bellevigne was at least a century older than Chateau Valmy, and completely unlike that formally symmetrical gem of the Enlightenment era. A conglomeration of various periods added to a foundation from the sixteenth century, it was a rambling farmhouse of buff-coloured sandstone surrounding a central courtyard. The rooms were small and there was hardly a right angle in the entire place. But it was cool in the heat of the day, and in the evening we ate in the colonnade listening to the plaint of doves and the faint tick and whir of insects from the hills.

And it lived up to its name; on the crown of the valley slope, looking out across serried rows of old vines, it was indeed beautiful. 

The summer there passed slowly, in the dreamy cicada-buzzing heat. There weren’t really any servants; most of the workers were dedicated to the much more important vines. But a local woman, Marthe, came in daily to do the cooking (and to teach me—life in an orphanage and then a boys’ boarding school hadn’t given me much scope in the kitchen). She fed Philippe breakfast before he tore off to race with her son Bertrand through the baking fields. 

This gave Raoul and I a precious hour or two before the heat of the day made our little room on the upper floor a furnace. Though honey-coloured morning sun streamed in through the open shutters, just enough of an idle breeze stirred the white voile curtains to refresh our skin and cool the heated sweat. Then, at last, we’d rise and lazily sponge each other off before getting dressed to face the hard work of the day. 

But once the vendange started, those leisured mornings were a thing of the past. The first harvest at Bellevigne was the hardest I’d ever worked in my life. Raoul hadn’t exaggerated when he said that his father had drained the place of capital to feed Valmy; we had fewer workers and none of the advanced labour-saving machinery that other estates in the region were beginning to purchase. 

As soon as the grapes were ripe, their fat, dusty globes plump with juice, everyone on the property was conscripted into the picking. We got up when the first faint line of dawn betrayed the presence of the sun still below the horizon, and we worked until it dropped into a deep fiery sea of cloud.

All day Philippe and Bertrand ran through the ranks of grapevines, carrying empty buckets to pickers who needed them and dragging heavy jugs of water on a shoulder yoke. Their energy exhausted me; during dinner break, I was capable of no more than lying languid in the shade of the vines. Raoul would laugh and fan me with my hat while I sucked on a wedge of ripe melon, letting the juice trickle down my parched throat. (The hat was atrocious, scratchy straw as big as a wagon wheel, but since its wide brim kept the sun from frying the back of my neck, I didn’t care.)

When they had a moment free, Philippe and Bertrand would trail after one of the oldest harvesters, Pierre Giraud. Though his hands were as gnarled as the vines from years of picking, he was still the fastest, able to strip an entire row before younger hands had made it halfway down their side. He was also an inveterate smoker and player of pétanque on his dinner break. The boys would hurl the heavy ball with abandon, and one had to be watchful lest their aim was worse than usual and one get cracked over the head.

“Linda! Linda! You come try.” Philippe danced around me in circles; it made me overheated just watching him. But it was good to see him brown as a nut from the sun and excited, rather than the quiet, too subdued little boy I remembered from my first days at Valmy. I heaved myself to my feet and dusted off the seat of my clamdiggers. The pants were considered scandalous by all the workers, but I stubbornly refused to wear a skirt while picking. Cooler it might be, but it also meant far more chance of scratches from the tough vines and bug bites on my bare legs. 

I got up and chucked the ball toward the marker with a theatrical grunt. Raoul clapped sardonically. “Excellent! You’ve overshot it by a mere two meters.”

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I took a bow and clapped my dowdy hat back on. Anything was better than sunstroke. Raoul stretched out on the dry golden grass and watched me lazily, his arms pillowing the back of his head. This country seemed to suit my husband more than Valmy; he looked at home here in its harsh light and raw heat. I wished we were alone so that I could lie down beside him and taste the warmth of his brown cheek, his mouth… Blushing, I looked away. At least it would seem like heat reddening my face to anyone else.

“What shall we do on Sunday, ma petite?” he asked.

I groaned. “More of this, I assume.” My back and arms—my whole body, in fact—were sore from the unaccustomed motions of constant stooping and picking. 

He shook his head. “We’ll finish in another day, I think. Day and a half at most. Harvest dinner for the hands on Sunday, but we’ll have the day to ourselves… I’ll show you the hidden spring in the woods and you can play woodnymph.”

Philippe popped out of the next row of vines and said excitedly, “Do you mean we can swim? I have been wanting to swim for an age! It’s too far to the sea from here.”

Raoul looked at me and we laughed, a little ruefully. Ah well, there would be other times for just the two of us.

The woods were not dark or deep, but they were lovely. Here it was mostly cedars and plane trees, with little undergrowth. The sandy ground was carpeted with thick soft drifts of years of old fallen needles turned a rich rust red. Outcroppings of mellow golden stone jutted through the thin skin of earth, and a burst of lush green ferns showed where Raoul’s spring had its source. The rock beneath the trickle of water shone with veins of darker gold and bronze. I cupped my hand under the flow—steady even in this parched season—and my fingers went numb with cold. 

At the base of the little cliff below the spring, the water had carved out a basin with its constant rush and swirl. It was barely large enough for a tall man to float stretched out on the surface, but in the hot afternoon it was alluring. Raoul had warned Philippe not to jump in; the pool was not deep enough for that, even for a young boy. But he splashed in with abandon, teeth chattering in a way that didn’t fill me with anticipation. When I dipped a cautious toe in, however, the water was less cold than I expected. The sun must catch enough of this side of the slope to warm it, at least by the afternoon.

After a short swim, just enough to refresh, I sat on the sun-warmed rock and tipped my head back. The bitter, astringent scent of crushed fern surrounded me as Philippe and Raoul splashed about, dunking each other and sending a fine spray over my head every few minutes. I didn’t mind; my hair would dry soon enough in this heat. 

Philippe rolled over like a seal and demonstrated his back crawl for Raoul, who held him up with one hand under his skinny frame while he gave him direction. “Hold your arms straighter—cup your hands a bit—yes, that’s it.”

Lesson over, they waded ashore for a picnic on the rock. Olives, tomatoes, crusty bread and the soft cheese of the region tasted like a feast. The food disappeared rapidly, leaving only crumbs and scattered olive pits that I gathered up, putting them back in the empty jar for later disposal. 

The noise hit my ear and I moved in what seemed like the same instant. Certainly before my mind had interpreted it for what it was—a gunshot—my body had already reacted, dropping the jar and throwing myself toward Philippe.

I found myself sprawled on the ground, shielding Philippe’s body with mine curled protectively over him. He was shaking, fine tremors running through his entire body from his scalp to his toes. 

“Linda! It’s alright, little one, it’s alright.” Raoul was on the dusty rock beside us, wrapping his arms around both of us at once. “That was nowhere near us, it’s someone on the other side of the ridge.”

I pushed my hair out of my face and tried to smile with trembling lips. “How silly of me. I ought to have known.” 

Philippe sat up and swallowed. His voice was very small but perfectly steady. “I also was silly. It is no matter.”

“We were all startled.” Raoul ruffled his hair, a liberty which Philippe only allowed at times of great emotion. “It’s well on time for supper now anyway, little owl. Let’s go see if we can beat Bertrand at pétanque today.”

Philippe nodded, and got to his feet with every sign of having discarded any fear. But instead of running ahead down the rocky trail, as usual, he stayed between us, and we were halfway to the farmhouse before he let go of my hand.

That night, after the harvest dinner shared with the workers was over, Raoul and I sat up late over our little glasses of pastis and talked. After unburdening myself on just how close it had been when someone shot at Philippe in the woods below Valmy, I felt somewhat better; I didn’t think Raoul had known just how near he had come to harm before.

“We can’t let this continue,” I said. “Both of us have to find a way to get past it. I can’t be jumping like a scalded cat every time I hear a loud noise, and Philippe has to be comfortable on his own. I want him to feel safe at Bellevigne. But if we push him too soon, he’ll only cling tighter...”

“Yes.” Raoul took my hand and squeezed it. “I may have a solution, but it could take some time to arrange. Will you give me a week or two to see what I can do?”

And that was how Philippe came to be given a puppy for his tenth birthday. 

“Remember you once asked me if you could shoot when you were ten?” I said cheerfully. “You’re still too young, but if you ever decide to hunt in the future, this little morsel can be your companion. She comes from a long line of brilliant retrievers, apparently.”

There was not much call for working dogs in this country, which was mostly farms and grapevines. A few farmers kept dogs who were a cross between guard dogs for the household and gundogs when they went out to shoot; Pierre Giraud happened to be one of them. And his bitch had just had a litter of puppies. Apparently, she was known for her protective instincts and had, like J. M. Barrie’s Nana, served as the unofficial nursemaid of the Giraud brood. Raoul hoped that with her daughter as companion, we would all feel reassured of Philippe's safety no matter where he was.

Of course, until she was older, she would also provide an excuse for staying closer to home.

Raoul put the basket in Philippe’s arms. He looked down at the small black and white puddle of fur curled inside it doubtfully, and I worried that we’d misjudged. Then the puppy yawned, a wide pink cavern splitting her snub face wide open and a little rose tongue wrapping around his fingers, and he fell in love with a crash that could be felt.

I shook my head. “Can you imagine a dog in the hallowed halls of Valmy?” The thought of this speckled beast of indeterminate parentage gambolling over the Aubusson carpets amused me greatly.

Raoul looked pleased. “I certainly can… I always wished for one.”

I slipped my arm around his waist and leaned against his shoulder, recognizing the eternal wish of the lonely child for some kind of companionship. I had certainly spent many nights at the orphanage dreaming of a cat that would curl up on my feet in bed.

With a startled delight, I realized that there was nothing stopping me. If I wanted to procure a mouser for Bellevigne, there must be dozens in the village alone. 

I turned in the circle of Raoul’s arm and smiled up at him. “Raoul, my love. How would you feel about a kitten?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to Rachel for quick and helpful beta-reading!
> 
> The title is from Massenet's opera _Cendrillon_.


End file.
